Previewing The Yankees' Arizona Fall League Representatives

(Originally published at IIATMS/TYA)

The 2013 Arizona Fall League season kicks off tomorrow night, another chance for established prospects to improve their stock and non or fringe prospects to possibly work their way onto the Major League radar.  The Yankees will once again be well represented, sending 7 players to join the Scottsdale Scorpions, but unlike last year the 7 representatives aren't all household names.  This year's group includes everybody from top 3 organizational prospects to a few players whose names you might have never heard.  If you aren't up to date on who's making the trip this fall, here's your refresher.

2013 Storylines Review: Contending On A Budget

("Add any more money to 2014 and I'll f*cking kill you."  Courtesy of Getty Images)

Way back in March, I opened up the "2013 AB4AR Season Preview" series with a post on the most important storyline the team was going to face this year, how the hell they were going to manage to contend on a budget.  In a vacuum, the Yankees cutting payroll down to $189 million and still staying competitive is the easiest thing in the world.  They're still the biggest, baddest dudes on the block with the deepest pockets and they're still spending more than every team in MLB not named the Dodgers.  If any team can put together a winner with a hair under $200 mil, it's the Bronx Bombers.

Baseball isn't played in a vacuum though, especially not the business-savvy version of Major League Baseball that's spread across both leagues in the last handful of years.  The Yankees' plan to start their payroll cutting plan in 2013 while still maintaining their traditional level of competitiveness was flawed from the beginning and they executed that plan to flawless flawed perfection over the course of the season.  Whether Hal Steinbrenner truly meant what he said when he said he was still committed to fielding a championship-caliber team is irrelevant.  What is relevant is the fact that attempting to do that in the way the Yankees did in 2013 was completely and utterly wrong.

Where In The World Is Michael Pineda?

(Courtesy of Martin Griff/The Times of Trenton)

It's been 3 months since Michael Pineda was activated off the disabled list to continue rehabbing his shoulder from 2012 surgery.  It's been 2 months since he was removed from his final Triple-A start of the season with stiffness in that shoulder and shut down for the rest of the season.  Despite the team taking a very cautious approach with his rehab workload, and despite Cash saying at his year-end presser that Pineda was and is healthy, the fact remains that he was shut down for the season after throwing only 40.2 official MiL innings and has still yet to throw 1 regular season pitch as a Yankee after 2 years.

There's been little to no information on what Pineda has been doing since being shut down.  He spent the remainder of the regular season throwing side sessions at the team complex in Tampa, but there's been no talk of the next step or a plan for 2014.  Cash continues to take the cautious stance with Pineda, saying only that Pineda would "compete for a job" next spring and referencing the MiL options he still has remaining.  Knowing, at least based on Cash's word, that Pineda was healthy at the end of this season and knowing what the team's intentions were when they traded for him, that's just not good enough for me.

Monday Morning Food For Thought

(Courtesy of Getty Images)

Robinson Cano vs. LHP 2010: .369 wOBA, 13 HR, 13.0% K rate
Cano vs. LHP 2011: .375 wOBA, 8 HR, 13.9% K rate
Cano vs. LHP 2012: .290 wOBA, 6 HR, 17.5% K rate
Cano vs. LHP 2013: .343 wOBA, 7 HR, 16.5% K rate

2012 was brutal, 2013 was a nice bounce back but still not up to his usual standards.  What do those last 2 years say about Robbie's production against southpaws moving forward?

Latest On Joe's Contract Talks

It's been a few days since the Yankees and Joe Girardi sat down for their first meeting regarding Joe's new contract.  It was reported that the team made Joe their first offer at that meeting, and while Joe didn't accept it, he and his agent did respond with some of the things they were looking for in a new deal.  A follow-up offer was expected shortly after from the team, and according to Joel Sherman's latest reports, the offer was supposed to come on Friday.

It hasn't been confirmed or denied from either side whether that happened, but I think it's safe to assume that at the very least some new figures were exchanged in the last day or so.  The Yankees have made it clear that bringing Joe back is a priority, evidenced both by their quick start in getting talks going with Joe and their refusal to allow other teams (Cubs, Nationals) to interview Joe while he's still under contract.  Sherman's guess was a deal somewhere in the 3-year/$13-16 million range and it wouldn't come as a surprise if a new contract in that range was announced early next week.

Could The Yanks Be Getting Back Into The International Free Agent Game?

The last time the Yankees took a plunge in the international free agent market, they ended up spending almost $50 million on Kei Igawa, the Droopy Dog-faced Japanese lefty who proved to be worth not even a single cent of that money.  Ever since that disaster, one in which the Yanks admitted they didn't even know what pitches Igawa threw, New York has spent the last few offseasons on the sidelines when it's come to the top international free agents, choosing to spend their money on more well-known MLB commodities.  In doing so they've missed out on guys like Yu Darvish and Yoenis Cespedes, high-ceiling talents who came with question marks and price tags that proved to be enough to scare the Yankee front office away.

With the team hanging perilously on the edge of a major decline, the roster looking old and beat up, and ownership putting a cap on the salary, this offseason might not be a bad time for the Yankees to tag themselves back into the international market and inject their franchise with some much-needed youth and excitement.  With the way they've tracked the 2 biggest names in this year's market, that could be exactly what they're planning to do.

The A-Rod SueFest 2013 Continues

Fresh of the heals of absolutely boomsaucing Bud Selig in his lawsuit against MLB on Thursday, Alex Rodriguez and his legal team kept the momentum going with another lawsuit today.

Via Ken Davidoff, A-Rod has filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against Yankee team doctor Christopher Ahmad and the NYPC Medical Center for misdiagnosing his hip injury back in 2012.  This is right in line with the claims A-Rod made months back about people conspiring to keep him off the field and most likely related to his allegation that the team hid his MRI results from him initially.  I hope this circus never ends.  If Alex is going to go down as Bud's PED sacrificial lamb, he might as well try to make everybody else look as shitty as he does.

Friday Afternoon Linkapalooza: 10/4/13

I don't know about y'all, but I'm ready to settle in for a long Saturday of college football after missing it for the horse track last week.  Now onto the links!

- On Monday, Alex Belth of Bronx Banter put Mo's career greatness on display in graphical form.  Really cool stuff to look at, especially the breakdown of saves by catcher.

- William Juliano of The Captain's Blog looked at the slew of disturbing performance trends in 2013 that could lead to even darker days in Yankeeland if changes aren't made.

- Greg Corcoran of Bronx Baseball Daily attempted to predict the 2014 MiL rosters.

- On Tuesday, Derek Albin of Pinstripe Pundits commented on the the disagreement between the Yankees' expected and actual records in 2013, and the impact that may or may not have on the ownership's offseason direction.

- Matt Bove of IIATMS/TYA listed the top 5 issues the Yankees need to address this offseason.  Personally I don't think I could have narrowed a list down to just 5, so good on Matt for doing it.

- On Wednesday, Daniel Burch of The Greedy Pinstripes presented the complete list of arbitration-eligible Yankees and offered up his salary predictions for each.

- On Thursday, Vizzin of NoMaas issued his lengthy, and not very optimistic, forecast for 2014.

- Mike Axisa of RAB reset the landscape for Michael Pineda and pointed out how he's just as big a question mark now after 2 missed seasons than he was the minute the Yankees traded for him.  That's depressing.

- Jason Cohen of Pinstriped Bible interviewed pitching prospect Shane Greene, who may have had the best under-the-radar season in the Minors.  Greene should be showing up on some prospect lists this year.

- On Friday, Chad Jennings of LoHud broke down the A-Rod lawsuit into easier-to-understand legal chunks.  Very helpful if you're not in the legal field or just stupid like me.

- Ricky Keeler of Yanks Go Yard pointed out how the rest of the AL East is bypassing the Yankees in terms of talent and overall organizational direction.

- SG of RLYW examined the second base production from the rest of MLB to see what other suitors could be out there for Robinson Cano if the Dodgers are truly out of the running.

This Friday's jam is "Walk Idiot Walk" by The Hives.  Are The Hives still around anymore?  These guys were the shizz back in the day.



Enjoy your weekends, everybody.

AB4AR's 2013 Yankees End-Of-Season Awards

I'd like to come up with another intro recapping the ups and downs of the season, but honestly, we all know how it went and we don't need to be reminded of it again.  Let's just cut to the chase.  After the jump, AB4AR is proud to present its winners of the 2013 seasonal awards.

On CC's 2013 Home Run Problem

(Courtesy of Getty Images)

(Originally published at IIATMS/TYA)

It was a rough season for CC Sabathia.  It started rough with a delayed throwing program and low velocity, it stayed rough with constant fastball velocity/command issues, and it finished rough with a Grade II hamstring strain that shelved him before he could make his final start.  The most damaging byproduct of those fastball problems was the major increase in HR allowed in 2013.  Sabathia set a new career worst with 28 dingers against, good bad for 7th most in all of MLB.  That total and final ranking comes after the big guy went homerless in September, so without that late SSS luck he could have found himself top 5 or even top 3 like he was for most of the year.

BREAKING NEWS: A-Rod Sues MLB (Updated)

Well this is quite the unexpected turn of events.  According to a story published this morning by the New York Times, Alex Rodriguez and his legal team sued Major League Baseball last night, claiming they are leading a "witch hunt" to force him out of the game that MLB engaged in "tortious interference" as part of their attempt to build their suspension case against A-Rod.

The biggest accusation is one involving an MLB investigator paying $150,000 to Anthony Bosch for records on A-Rod that his legal team claims were stolen.  The specifics of the money exchange read like something out of "Ocean's Eleven" and if this turns out to be true that would be a huge blow to MLB.  I can't imagine that 211-game suspension would be upheld by the arbitrator if it turns out they were using tactics this shady to gather intel.

A-Rod said a few months back that he was going to be in a fight for his life with this appeals case and he's certainly handling it that way.  Love him or hate him, you have to give his legal team credit for doing everything they can to discredit MLB and paint A-Rod in a more sympathetic light.  The appeals hearing won't wrap up today, and there's no scheduled time table for when it will pick up again, but with this latest twist it should only get more interesting from here.

** UPDATE 10:00 AM- Here's the PDF of the full lawsuit.  Definitely take a minute to read that introduction. **

Biggest Cano Competition Out Of The Running Already?

Via Bob Nightengale, here's Magic Johnson last night on where the Dodgers stand in the possible Robinson Cano free agent sweepstakes:

"I can't talk about the other guy, but you already know that guy in New York is going to be paid. Not by us. But he's going to get paid.''

Now there is a non-zero possibility that Magic is just saying that to say it, but it would make sense for LA to take themselves out of the running for Cano.  They've spent a shit ton of money the last few years and it's a known fact that their major focus is locking Clayton Kershaw up long term.  If they are truly planning to stay away from Cano, that's a huge boost to the Yankees in terms of being able to re-sign him and re-sign him for terms that are friendlier to them.

Your move, Hova.

A Look At The Current 2014 Roster

(Originally published at IIATMS/TYA)

To further drive home the point that the Yankees have a ton of work to do this offseason, and to start to quell any high expectations you may still have for a bounce back season in 2014, here's what the 2014 Opening Day Roster could look like if it was comprised of only returning organizational players:

Lineup:

 C- Austin Romine
1B- Mark Teixeira
2B- David Adams
SS- Derek Jeter
3B- Eduardo Nunez
LF- Alfonso Soriano
CF- Brett Gardner
RF- Ichiro Suzuki
DH- Vernon Wells

Thursday Late Morning Food For Thought

Hiroki Kuroda 2012: 3.32/3.86/3.67, 18.7% K rate, 5.7% BB rate, 3.7 fWAR
Hiroki Kuroda 2013: 3.31/3.56/3.60, 18.2% K rate, 5.2% BB rate, 3.8 fWAR

Kuroda 2nd Half 2012: 3.14/3.63/3.34, 19.1% K, 4.3% BB
Kuroda 2nd Half 2013: 4.25/3.51/3.46, 18.9% K, 5.4% BB

Kuroda September 2012: 4.71/4.03/3.57, 20.3% K, 7.0% BB
Kuroda September 2013: 5.70/3.85/3.82, 20.0% K, 8.9% BB

What's more important to you?  The strong overall numbers or the late season decline?  And do you have faith he can do it again at 39?

Yanks Reportedly Make Offer To Joe

One thing's for sure, the Yankee front office doesn't appear to be wasting any time getting to work on their offseason to-do list.  They sat down with Joe and his agent yesterday, as previously announced by Cash, and reportedly made him an offer for a new contract in the course of the meeting.  According to Jon Heyman, Joe and his team didn't accept, but responded with a set of terms for his return and the 2 sides agreed to meet again today.

This all comes as positive news if you're in the camp that wants Joe back.  The team is being aggressive in their pursuit to re-sign Joe while they still have exclusive rights to negotiate with him.  Joe's current contract isn't up until the end of this month and with the Cubs reportedly preparing to make him a "significant" offer of their own, the Yankees can and should be using the time they have wisely.  The fact that another meeting was scheduled for today strongly suggests that yesterday's discussions went well and both sides are happy with where the talks are progressing.

It's still early for predictions, but if things keep up at this pace it's unlikely Joe ever gets out on the open market for the Cubs to make their pitch.

Did Cash Tip His Hand On The Robbie Cano Contract Yesterday?

(Was that a sneaky Ninja Cash slip of the tongue I detected?)

I already covered yesterday's Brian Cashman presser from 30,000 feet today, and while there was the one quote that stood out head and shoulders above the rest, there was one more that blipped onto my radar too.  When talking about the desire to have Robinson Cano back and where the contract talks between the 2 sides stood, Cash let slip (or did he?) this little clue as to what the Yankees might be planning:

“We’d love to have Robbie back….  He has received - or will receive -a significant offer to stay."

We know the Yankees made Cano an offer of 7 years and $161 million ($23 mil AAV) sometime this season, and no one would argue that's not a significant offer.  But Cash adding the line about "will receive" may be a clue as to where the Yankees currently stand in the process.  Anticipating that Cano wasn't going to accept their offer, maybe they already have their next counteroffer in mind.  Maybe there's something already in the works as a second offer.  Maybe the Yankees already have their entire negotiation strategy planned out to try to lock in a new deal quickly.  I would support that strategy wholeheartedly as it would allow them the rest of the offseason to fill all their other roster holes.  Guess we'll have to see how the next few rounds of negotiations play out to know for sure.

Qualifying Offer Candidates: Yay Or Nay

While it's still a month away, eventually the offseason will start and the Yankees will be face-to-face with a buttload of decisions to make for 2014.  They're losing a lot of players to retirement and free agency, and with the payroll budget and A-Rod's suspension uncertainty hanging over them it could be quite the uphill battle to replace, rebuild, restock, and re-up for next season.  One of the first round of decisions they'll have to make is whether to extend qualifying offers to some of their own free agents.  With the QO value expected to be around $14 million, that's a significant chunk of change to tack onto the payroll for a team on a budget.  The Yankees are going to have to weigh the value of that salary and anticipated production against the possible draft pick.

Now we're not talking about every free agent here.  Obviously the Yankees aren't going to make offers to Mo or Andy because they know they're retiring.  I'm also pretty sure they won't be making offers to guys like Kevin Youkilis and Boone Logan because they're nowhere near being worth that kind of money.  There are 4 players who stand out as potential candidates.  After the jump, my decisions on whether to make each of those 4 a qualifying offer.

Eric Jagielo Makes Baseball America's Top 20 NYPL Prospects List

It's not nearly as flashy as the 6 players they put on the GCL Top 20 list, but the Yankees did sneak 1 of their own onto Baseball America's Top 20 NY Penn League Prospects list that was released yesterday.  To no one's surprise, that player was 2013 1st round draft pick Eric Jagielo, who BA ranked as the 6th best prospect in the league.

After a slow start to his pro career, Jagielo really picked it up late in the season and finished with a .266/.376/.451 batting line (.390 wOBA, 153 wRC+), 6 HR, 27 RBI, and an 11.9% BB rate in 218 PA.  The BA scouting report commented positively on Jagielo's "smooth" swing and polished approach, typical for a college hitter in a short-season league, and said he should be able to stick at third base long term.  There weren't many other worthy Top 20 candidates on the SS Staten Island roster, but Jagielo's ceiling makes the lack of other representation less of an issue.

Jagielo should get his first taste of full-season ball next year and the Yankees really need him to produce and advance quickly.  Their continued lack of 1st round pick results has become a huge problem.

Highlights From Cash's End-Of-Season Press Conference

(Courtesy of The Star-Ledger)

Brian Cashman held court with the Yankee beat writer corps yesterday for his yearly season-ending press conference.  Typically there's little that's discussed here that constitutes actual news.  Maybe an extra injury we didn't know about here, an announcement about coaches coming back there, nothing earth-shattering.  It's more Cash's one time to give his thoughts on the season as a whole, talk more about individual players than he might have while the season was going on, and set the stage for the upcoming offseason.  It was all of that business as usual yesterday, with a few potential nuggets of interest here and there.  It's not hard to find more detailed descriptions of what Cash said around the blogopshere, but if you're just looking for the tastiest morsels, here they are.

2013 AB4AR "Best Of The Month" Awards: September 2013

There was hope.  After 5 months of mostly bad baseball, there was still hope for a late Yankee playoff run in September, hope that they themselves helped inspire with a 17-12 run from mid-August to mid-September.  But in the end everything that plagued them in the first 5 months came back to kill the hope in the final 2+ weeks of the regular season.  Injuries, extended stretches of dormant offense, and to put it mildly, incredibly uneven starting and relief pitching.  The Yankees went 6-9 in their final 15 games of the season, including 2 separate 4-game losing streaks, to eliminate themselves from postseason contention and render the final handful of games meaningless, save for the career celebrations of Mo and Andy.

It was a long season, one with more bad than good.  But there were still some noteworthy performances in September, and after the jump you can check out the final batch of monthly AB4AR awards honoring those performances.

Oh Yeah, The A-Rod Suspension Appeal Started Yesterday

(Courtesy of the AP)

(Originally published at IIATMS/TYA)

For as much news as his initial connection to the Biogenesis Clinic made, and as much as the MSM hyped him up as a villain when the suspensions were handed down and he was the only one to appeal, the opening day of the Alex Rodriguez appeal hearing yesterday didn't generate much buzz.  A-Rod himself was there with his legal team, as was former Biogenesis head Anthony Bosch, but for the most part the coverage seemed to be limited to just that and a few quick words from A-Rod and Joe Tacopina on their way out.  I don't know if it was because there was the AL tiebreaker game last night or if everybody was super stoked about Saints-Dolphins on MNF.  I even forget about it myself before I saw a few things come across Twitter late yesterday morning, which is surprising considering the results of this appeal are the most important part of the Yankees' offseason.

Don't Get Worked Up About Joe's Contract Situation Either, People

I understand that Robbie Cano and Joe are very important parts to the Yankees' future plans, guys.  But can we not get overboard excited about what their contract "demands" are and what they may or may not do this early in the offseason game?  Please?

I'll admit, there were a lot of little things happening yesterday that could have made it appear as though Joe was jumping ship.  He wouldn't commit to coming back to the Yankees beyond saying he had to sit down and discuss it with his family, Buster Olney reported that it would take a significant raise from his current $3 million salary to bring him back to New York, his hometown Cubs fired Dale Sveum after 2 relatively unproductive seasons, and the roster he could be looking at in 2014 could be worse than what he just got done managing.  Still, if you think his decision is that simple to leave a potentially sinking ship to return home and become a hero, it's not.

Picking The Hypothetical Yankee Playoff Roster

The Yankees aren't going to be participating in the postseason this year.  It's only the second time we've been able to say that since 1994, and with the type of baseball we watched them play for the majority of the season it's probably for the best that they're on the outside looking in.  I've gotten so used to doing the end-of-year debate about the playoff roster that it's strange to not have to think about that this year.  Chances are the Yankees wouldn't get very far in the playoffs regardless of what 25 guys they took, but trying to predict the playoff roster is usually one of the more fun exercises of the year.  In the interest of trying to have a little fun, here's what my hypothetical 25-man playoff roster would look like.

Some Final Statistical Perspective On The Yankees' Season

The Yankees finished up their 2013 season with a series sweep of the god-awful Houston Astros this past weekend.  Those 3 wins gave them an 85-77 final record, expected when you consider where a lot of the preseason projections had them and somewhat surprising when you consider their -21 run differential.  That figure painted the Yankees as a sub-.500 team, 79-83 according to the Pythagorean W-L projections, and it's worth noting that the Yankees were the only team in MLB with a negative run differential that finished above .500 on the season.

There was no return of mystique and aura to carry this old, extremely flawed ballclub to the postseason.  There was no last magical run for Andy and Mo.  There was just a crummy baseball team that somehow slightly outperformed its mediocre statistical expectations.  If you need further proof of that, here it is in a nutshell.

No Mo This Weekend Was The Right Thing To Do

(Courtesy of the AP)

Along with Andy making his final career start in front of his second home fans, the only other source of buzz to this weekend's season-concluding series in Houston was what else Mariano Rivera had in store for a goodbye.  Would he pitch?  Would he play the outfield?  How much would Joe let him pitch if he was going to play the outfield?  Turns out the answer to all those questions was either "no" or "none".  After Joe said he was letting Mo call his own shots for the series, Mo ended up not pitching or playing at all in the final 3 games, citing arm soreness and general fatigue and a desire to respect the game and not play when he wasn't at his best.